[TriLUG] defense against dictionary attacks?

[Aaron S. Joyner]

Jon Carnes wrote:

>The attitude of "wait for the professional to do it" is not one that I
>appreciate on an Open Source list.  We are still pioneers here. Able and
>ready to do the things that need to be done. 
>
>BTW: I run scripts like this on production servers that are *much*
>faster than canned Perl scripts written by "professionals". You might be
>surprised by just how optimized these GNU tools are.
>
>Now, don't get me wrong. I know that you are a pioneer at heart as well
>- and well capable of creating these apps. I just don't think it profits
>our users to steer them away from playing with scripting their own
>custom solutions. Yes it can get them into trouble - but then life *is*
>messy... and we learn best when we make a mess.
>
>Jon Carnes
>
I suppose now that I'm a little more out of Rant mode, I'll restate it 
as, "be sure to test and compare your solution vs your problem".  :)  
Yes, the ability to write custom solutions like this is really the 
beauty of the open source software, and the open source philosophy.  Try 
even having this discussion on an M$ Exchange mailing list.  :)  I also 
didn't mean to say or imply that "a professional" would do a better job 
than "an amateur" at this solution, but simply that the solution itself 
warrants further consideration.

Aaron S. Joyner